


everything, always.

by verdent



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Minor Violence, not explicitly theopin but could be interpreted that way, teen for descriptions of the cathedral scene and language but nothing too intense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 08:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdent/pseuds/verdent
Summary: in spite of everything, lapin lives, and after years of running circles theobald finally understands him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Dimension 20 Fic Exchange 2020





	everything, always.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aesthetic_shitpost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesthetic_shitpost/gifts).



_My third wish is for you to bring them home._

It is a directive meant only for Lapin, but secrets cannot sustain themselves here, writhe and die in the realm of the Sugar Plum Fairy under a will even she cannot feign control of.

Lapin twitches ahead of them where he faces her, hands taut and bruising where he forces his staff by his side to remain where he wants it.

Chancellor Lapin Cadbury is his own entity, always has been, but not here under what gives him his strength, not here where he is joined by the keeper of his power. This was the plan all along.

Theo steps between him and the Rocks family as he is trained to. And between them it all comes to this.

Neither is righteous.

Neither is willing.

\---

Theobald knows they should run, duty baked into his bones screaming with adrenaline, but the stained-glass conceals the bloody sacrilege of the Bulb enough to stay. He cannot watch, but he must. It is the bitter role of the executioner and the debt owed to a helpless soldier.

An exchange moments before with the heap of a body under the bulb’s watchful eye and the mace at the hand of the most powerful and desecrated form in all of Calorum.

_I misjudged you, chancellor._

_Oh, shut up._

The moment he sees the feeble panic in Lapin’s expression he knows it is over. They have done all they can do, and the mace swings up towards a heaven which does not exist and down towards its damnation.

To which Lapin, in his beautiful bloody impiety, with a rage subtle and stronger than Amethar’s strikes a clawed hand alight with purple, unmasked and perfect in its own defiant light, across the face of Sir Keradin Deeproot, and in the shudder which fills the room, shards of carrot under his nails, laughs low and cold to fill the cathedral.

“How many times have you held this very hand, Belizabeth? Remember, you knew me well.”

His grin is wide and menacing, hand glowing sickly and bloodied some with his own some with that of the holy men in his presence.

“The Bulb cannot cleanse you of that.” 

It is a fact before it is a threat.

He is outside, Preston tucked squealing under his arm and losing focus on everything but the Rocks family around him.

“What the _fuck_ are you all still doing here?”

He does not have the forethought to preserve his image, shaking and desperate and holding in whatever he can of his side.

“Waiting for you”

Theo chokes his tears down and catches him.

Lapin feels Preston lifted from his grasp, Liam huddling him in the distance, low sobs of relief ringing out, and the cold comfort of Theo’s armor as he passes out, world rushing around him as they sprint off into the ruin of the mess they have made.

\---

And Lapin, younger, locks eyes with the right hand of the king at the far end of the chamber as he is sworn in under the light of the bulb, under its name, and for its glory may he shine.

_What do you know of rebellion, of blasphemy?_

_Do you keep your sinners close to your heart?_

//

_Everything,_

_always._

Lapin chuckles as the Candian oils fall across his eyelids and draw them closed vision blurring at the edges. A gathered crowd of nobles and king’s and clergy men applaud. From that moment on he cannot assume Sir Theobald Gumbar is among them. 

\---

He is not a pawn, not a tool to be used for someone else’s gain no matter how well he may act the part. Lapin hates this world and bears its empty promises for himself and those he cares for, and in that he feels noble for as long as the universe will allow him, until the staff is splintering in his paw at the face of a childish deity who seems to have forgotten how their arrangement is to be had. 

Theobald waits with bated breath for the turning, sees the violent resistance in Lapin’s uncharacteristic twitch holding himself back against the whims of a god, impressive as he always was.

_You will choose them?_

_You know this, every time._

_Then let me go, commander._

They see it now, the war which has raged beneath Lapin’s ribcage for as long as he has known them, his power, his providence. As he had first known him, Theobald would have thrown him to the cavern the moment they entered here in his domain, but he poises himself defensively as Lapin holds his head in his hands, that purple light which once saved him now raging in his hands and his heart as he attempts to contain it before it can at once devour him.

_Only if I must, chancellor._

_If you must._

Theobald does not know what remains of Lapin Cadbury as his figure turns to face the party, movements betraying a spirit not his own, vicious and striking and horribly uncomposed, but he will rend this place asunder for the smallest chance to bring him home.

**Author's Note:**

> i know this wasn't exactly romantic, definitely along the lines of learning to respect one another, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless <3


End file.
